the Sede boy call on all his gods for wind, with interludes of smoke,
when he chucked his deities and tobacco, and, pointing, shouted, 'Man!
man!'

"I snatched a spy-glass. Sure enough, there was a boat on the water.
It was moving ever so slowly. It seemed to stop, and we saw something
lifted and waved, and then all was still again. I got a boat's crew
together, and away we went in that deadly smother. An hour's row and we
got within hail of the derelict--as one of the crew said, 'feelin' as if
the immortal life was jerked out of us.' The dingey lay there on the
glassy surface, not a sign of life about her. Yet I had, as I said, seen
something waved. The water didn't even lap its sides. It was ghostly,
I can tell you. Our oars licked the water; they didn't attack it. Now,
I'm going to tell you something, Marmion, that'll make you laugh. I
don't think I've got any poetry in me, but just then I thought of some
verses I learned when I was a little cove at Wellington--a devilishly
weird thing. It came to me at that moment like a word in my ear. It
made me feel awkward for a second. All sailors are superstitious, you
know. I'm superstitious about this ship. Never mind; I'll tell you the
verses, to show you what a queer thing memory is. The thing was called
'No Man's Sea':

"'The days are dead in the No Man's Sea,
And God has left it alone;
The angels cover their heads and flee,
And the wild four winds have flown.

"'There's never a ripple upon the tide,
There's never a word or sound;
But over the waste the white wraiths glide,